


Until the Sun Replaces the Moon

by zarabithia



Category: Thelma and Louise (1991)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 16:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16350503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: They are supposed to make it to Mexico, and they do.





	Until the Sun Replaces the Moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HerbertBest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerbertBest/gifts).



They are supposed to make it to Mexico, and they do. 

At first, they worry about sticking out and being seen. But they soon learn that the troubles that had seemed so large in their old home matter very little to anyone in their new one. 

Their reluctance to tell anyone about their past soon becomes of an interesting fact as Thelma's hair color. Most Americans liked to talk about their country, but Thelma and Louise do not; most people in their border town did not have Thelma's hair color, but Rosa's abuela also does, and she makes the very best wedding cookies. 

Rosa has the deepest black hair of anyone that Thelma has ever known, but she is very proud of both her abuela's beautiful hair and her amazing cooking skills. She passes many days telling Thelma all about both qualities. 

"Are you interested in wedding cookies? Abuela will be happy to make them for you," Rosa tells Thelma as they share as shift in the tiny bar that is 100% less full of assholes than any Thelma has worked in. 

Thelma laughs as she cleans a table and thinks about . "No," she says. "I think a wedding might not ever be in my future again." 

"Ah," Rosa says sympathetically. "Your last one ended badly, then. That is why you are here."

There's such certainty in that voice, that last two sentences are not questions. Thelma freezes up instantly, and heart pounds in her throat as she struggles to come up with a convincing lie.

"No! Of course not! Me? Married? Pft. Who would want to deal with this mess!" Thelma says."My sister barely could handle me. I practically had to drag her down here, you know." 

It isn't convincing. Of course it isn't. 

Rosa shakes her head at Thelma and downs a leftover tequila shot from the table. 

"No shame for you or your family. Many who come here because their last marriages did not end well. Some from your direction, some from south of us." Rosa shrugs. 

"And you?" Thelma asks. "Is that why you are here?" 

It's hypocritical. It might even be dangerous. talking of the past when she has no reason to share her own. 

Rosa shrugs. "Sometimes men like tequila better than they like being married. Shame about that, eh, Senorita?" 

Thelma takes the last shot left on the table. 

*

They share a tiny apartment above the shop where Louise has found work. In the shop, she is supposed to be stocking supplies, but the owners don't need help with the daily running of the store. They do need help with their English, to keep up with their grandchildren, who have grown up in San Antonio and speak both languages fluently. 

There's only room for one bed in that tiny apartment, which in truth, is a bedroom and a bathroom. Thelma lays on the bed next to Louise and watches her read. Sometimes Louise lies on the bed and watches Thelma stitch together an unruly hem. 

Louise is close enough that Thelma can count the freckles that she'd never noticed before. 

"Do you think that I should dye my hair?" Thelma asks Louise. 

Louise looks up from the book she is reading and looks confused. "Do you want to dye your hair?" 

Thelma shrugs. "Do you think it would help keep us safe?" 

"You aren't the only fair-haired woman in this town of misfits," Louise says. "But it's your hair, and you should do what you want with it, Thelma."

"But what do you think?" Thelma asks. 

These days, Louise is all she has left, and it's very important that Thelma knows what Louise thinks. 

For a moment, the familiar exasperation is clear all over Louise's face. But then she folds over the page she'd stopped on, closes the book, and places it on crate that doubles as a nightstand. 

Louise turns to Thelma, and folds her arm up under the pillow on her side of the bed. 

"I think you are beautiful, Miss Thelma," Louise says. "And it'd be a shame to let those bastards keep chasing us." 

*  
Thelma doesn't dye her hair, and nobody realizes she's a wanted American felon because of it.

As the days pass into weeks, and the weeks into months, she starts to realize that her fear had been a pretty silly one. Rosa is right, and Louise is right. But her dreams do not always realize this. Thelma has hard enough of a time being rational; her dreams cannot be expected to do it at all. 

Sometimes, she dreams that they did not make it to Mexico. 

Sometimes, she dreams of a car going over a cliff with both of them holding hands. 

Sometimes, she dreams of a car going over a cliff and Louise pushing her out at the very end.

Sometimes, she dreams of being left behind.

Thelma does not know if Louise has these dreams. Probably not - Louise has always been stronger than Thelma has ever been. Why should that not continue to be the case in their dreams? 

But because Louise has always been the stronger one, Louise is always right there whenever the dreams come to haunt Thelma with what might have beens. Louise gathers Thelma in her arms, and they rock together in the dark, until Louise's hold becomes more powerful than the hold that the dreams may have had.

Tonight, Thelma can still feel the metal of bars she has never been in, as Louise rocks with her on the bed. Moonlight comes through a small window, and Louise's heartbeat is the most important sound that Thelma has ever heard.

"I hate the ones where I'm alone," Thelma whispers. "They are worse than all the others." 

"But none of them are real," Louise whispers. "And they aren't going to be." 

Louise presses a kiss to Thelma's forehead. It does not stop there; the kiss travels to her lips, and it grows from there. 

It grows and it grows some more, until the kisses are as frenzied and desperate as the fear that lives inside of Thelma. 

*

"My favorite dreams are the ones where we hold hands and face the future, no matter what," Thelma tells Louise, much later, when the moonlight has been replaced by sunlight.

"My favorite dreams are the ones where we are vengeful gods, striking down every angry man who dared to act a fool," Louise responds. "But I like yours, too."


End file.
